Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is recognized as one of the greatest health threats facing modern medicine. There is, as yet, no cure for this disease.
A great deal of information has been gathered about the HIV, however, to date an effective vaccine has not been identified. Recently, use of polynucleotides encoding antigenic HIV polypeptides in immunogenic compositions has been described. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,846,546 to Hurwitz et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,840,313 to Vahlne et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,731 to Sia et al.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,689,879; 6,602,705 and International Publications WO 00/39303, WO 00/39302, WO 00/39304, WO 02/04493 describe polynucleotides encoding one or more immunogenic HIV polypeptides that generate humoral and/or cellular responses in vivo.